On DUST, Rewriting Constitutions & Partying My Independence Away

Been ridiculously busy, and I thought that instead of waiting until it was all done, I would fire out a quick post on the projects keeping me busy.

1. DUST Magazine (March 2011)

In case you didn’t know, I’m the editor of a quarterly magazine called DUST. It’s basically something for Accra, by Accra and about Accra. Ours is a dynamic little city and since no one else seems to be documenting it, we figured we would.

DUST is what I call my night job. My day job is as the New Media Officer for Ghana’s Constitution Review Commission. If you want to know more about that, read Fiona Leonard’s pretty damn instructive piece on it for Global Voices.

Since Tuesday, we have been hosting a National Constitution Review Conference where over 2000 participants are examining the over-80,000 submissions received by the Commission regarding Ghana’s Constitution.

As you can imagine, a lot of work is involved. I’ve been keeping a supervisory eye on the live streaming of proceedings, trying to get the word out online and doing lots of speech writing. It’s a lot more strenuous than it sounds. I’ve lost weight by one belt hole. This is Africa: that is not a good thing.

3. The Asabaako Music Festival

Well, this isn’t what I’ve been working on. More like what I have been working towards. It all goes down this weekend at Busua Beach. The Conference ends on Saturday and straight afterwards I will embark on a four hour drive to go and chill OUT for our long Independence Day weekend.

Talib Kweli was originally scheduled to come down but that sadly fell through. No worries: I was always going anyway. Not least because I will be one of a handful of DJs at this gathering of creatives, lovers of good music and live performances. Some of my favourite Ghanaian performers including Gyedu Blay Ambolley, Wanlov the Kubolor, Efya and Yaa Pono will be there too.

So… if anyone needs me, try me from Tuesday.

Meanwhile, you can drool (as I did) over the fantastic teaser trailer for Blitz the Ambassador’s upcoming movie/album, ‘Native Sun’.